Local authority recorded fly-tipping: quality report

An annual summary of fly-tipping incidents in Wales, as recorded by local authorities (LAs). The statistics are based on the returns made by LAs to the WasteDataFlow (WDF) database, managed by Natural Resources Wales (NRW) every financial year. Year references in this report are financial years. The headline includes data collected for the number of fly-tipping incidents, including incidents by size and waste type as well as the number of enforcement actions and prosecution outcomes.

Fly-tipping is the illegal deposit of waste on land, contrary to Section 33(1)(a) of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. It can pollute the environment, be harmful to human health and spoils our enjoyment of our towns and countryside. It also undermines legitimate waste businesses and can affect the inward investment potential of an area.

LAs and NRW both have a responsibility in respect of illegally deposited waste. LAs have a duty to clear fly-tipping from public land in their areas and consequently they deal with most of the fly-tipping on public land, investigating these and carrying out a range of enforcement actions. NRW, like LAs is responsible for clearing fly-tipping on land it manages and dealing with large-scale, serious and organised illegal dumping incidents which pose an immediate threat to human health or the environment. 

Data on fly-tipping in Wales is collected to help the Welsh Government, LAs and Fly-tipping Action Wales (FtAW) tackle the problem. The fly-tipping module within WDF – a web-based, fly-tipping database, allows LAs to record the number of fly-tipping incidents on land within their area each month. The fly-tipping module replaced the previous Flycapture system that was used up until 2014. The Flycapture database was introduced in 2004 as one measure to help meet the requirements of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act, 2003. The information in this release only covers incidents of fly-tipping dealt with by LAs. The actual number of incidents for Wales is higher than indicated. For instance, fly-tipping on housing association land is not included.

The full dataset, including LA breakdowns, is available on the StatsWales website.

The Welsh Government is committed to improving local environmental quality, tackling fly-tipping and reducing the amount spent in clean-up costs.

The Welsh Government’s draft Litter and fly-tipping prevention plan aims to make Wales free from the unacceptable social, economic and environmental harm caused by fly-tipping. A clean, safe, accessible and attractive local environment is an essential part of the Wales the Welsh Government wants for future generations.

To help support delivery the strategy, the Welsh Government continues to fund FtAW, an initiative which seeks to develop a truly integrated approach to tackling fly-tipping and one which aims secure its long-term reduction through a combination of measures including education, evidence, enforcement and community engagement.

During the 2018 to 2019 reporting period the Welsh Government introduced new powers to allow enforcement authorities to issue fixed penalty notices to householders who have failed to meet their household waste duty of care. This is in addition to new powers introduced during the 2017 to 2018 reporting period enabling fixed penalties to be issued for small-scale fly-tipping offences.

Data on fly-tipping is used by the Welsh Government, LAs and NRW to help monitor occurrences, identify emerging issues, and provide important evidence to inform policy and legislative development. FtAW, in consultation with Welsh Government, use the data to, support partner organisations, develop effective awareness campaigns and, where appropriate, support interventions.

Fly-tipping statistics are also important for Welsh Government and LAs when planning and delivering public services. Some of the uses include:

• monitoring, reporting and prevention
• staff and resource allocation
• advice to Ministers and elected representatives
• informing debate in the Welsh Parliament and beyond
• geographic profiling, comparisons and benchmarking

Other users of fly-tipping statistics include the media, non-governmental organisations, landowners, researchers, and members of the public.

Strengths

• The information is processed and published regularly and in an orderly manner to enable users to see the statistics when they are current and of greatest interest.
• Improvement in the consistency of reporting between LAs with clear guidance now in place.
• Data can be used to indicate emerging issues regarding problem waste types or land types.

Limitations

• There are still some inconsistencies in the way data is recorded by LAs (see quality section). 
• Many LAs have recently improved the way they capture and report fly-tips over the past few years, so the changes over time should be interpreted with some care. 
• LAs are given the opportunity to provide context to NRW which will allow us to attribute dramatic changes in statistics to service changes and recording improvements.
• Fly-tipping on private land is under reported, as the data only includes fly-tipping instances on private land if a LA got involved in investigating and clearing the fly-tip.
• Data does not indicate the exact location of incidents within a LA area.

The accuracy of the data reported to the fly-tipping module within the WDF database is entirely dependent on the measurement, data management and reporting by LAs. While FtAW carry out validation on behalf of Welsh Government and in accordance with the guidance, the validation of WDF and the cross-check with other available data is limited to the accuracy of those reporting.

Care needs to be taken when comparing pre and post COVID results.

FtAW compiled information from LAs to put together a summary of some of the key impacts of COVID-19 at the Wales wide level, which include:

• COVID-19 restrictions led to recycling centres being closed for long periods of time
• restricting the abilities of LAs to collect household waste
• an increase in people working from home led to an increase in household waste. 
• some LAs stopped staff from looking through bagged waste and interviewing suspects to prevent the spread of COVID-19
• some prosecutions were postponed, leading to a large backlog of cases in the years following the pandemic

Data source and coverage

The statistics are based on the returns made by LAs to the fly-tipping module within the WDF database. Not all incidents of fly-tipping will be recorded by a LA, therefore the figures in this release are an underestimate of the total amount of the fly-tipping in Wales.

Until 2024 to 2025, estimate costs for most clearance costs were calculated based on typical unit costs for dealing with the different types of incidents. Costs were provided by a small selection of local authorities between 2003 and 2006 when the Flycapture database was being set up. 

As the standard unit costs are now more than 15 years out of date, the decision has been taken to cease using these from the 2024 to 2025 publication onwards. For the time being only costs for clearance categories ‘tipper lorry load’ and ‘significant/multi loads’, will continue to be published, as LAs can provide costs for these categories. LAs might use their own average costs where actuals are not available. For missing historic data, the 2003 average costs have been used.

It should be noted that prosecutions do not necessarily take place in the same year as the relevant fly-tipping incident occurs.

Whilst fly-tipping figures are no longer designated as “Accredited Official Statistics”, they continue to be published in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics (UK Statistics Authority).

Data collection

LAs are notified of the data collection exercise timetable in advance. This allows adequate time for LAs to collate their information, and to raise any issues they may have. There is guidance to the fly-tipping module within the WDF database System (wastedataflow.org).

Validation and verification

Information is collected quarterly via WDF. The WDF system includes some in-built validation checks. FtAW carry out further validation of the data recorded in the fly-tipping module within the WDF database. Validation involves a procedure of checking that all relevant WDF questions have been completed by the LAs and any discrepancies in calculations between entered inputs and outputs are identified. Comparisons are made to previous years, and previous trends in the data. Any anomalies are then communicated to the individual LAs and remedial action is taken to resolve them.

As well as the guidance made available to data providers, FtAW held a workshop for all LAs in 2018 in order to improve understanding and to aid consistency.  NRW provide guidance to data providers in order to improve understanding and aid consistency.

Publication

Once the data has been finalised, the release is compiled and key points and commentary are drafted. The release is independently checked, and a final sense check is carried out by the relevant statistician prior to publication on the website.

Standards

The statistics that are prepared adhere to recognised professional standards. They are produced in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics independently under the responsibility of the Welsh Government Chief Statistician.

Official Statistics are produced to high professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics. They undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure that they meet customer needs. They are produced free from any political reference.

More detailed quality information relating specifically to Fly-tipping in Wales, which is not included in the quality report, is given below.

The statistics are based on the returns made by LAs to the fly-tipping module within the WDF database.

The annual report previously published as National Statistics was discontinued in 2014, following the consultation ‘Proposals concerning the publication of Official Statistics’. We have reinstated the publication of StatsWales tables and headline figures and whilst the figures are no longer designated as “National Statistics”, they continue to be published in accordance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.

Welsh environment statistics adhere to the Welsh Government’s Statistical Quality Management Strategy, and this is in line with the European Statistical System’s six dimensions of quality, as listed in Principle 4 of the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. 

Details of the six dimensions, and how we adhere to them, are provided below.

Relevance

The degree to which the statistical product meets user needs for both coverage and content.

The data in this Statistical Headline form the basis of evidence for monitoring fly-tipping incidents in Wales.

We actively review all our outputs and welcome feedback.

Accuracy

Detailed guidance is available via the FtAW website to help data providers gather and complete the monthly data collection returns for the fly-tipping module within WDF. The guidance should minimise differences in how different LAs classify and record fly-tipping incidents.

Limitations associated with this data set

Care should be taken when interpreting these figures due to changes and improvements in data reporting mechanisms and associated guidance. For example, large annual increases could be due to improved recording procedures. 

Not all incidents of fly-tipping will be recorded by a LA, therefore the figures in this release are an underestimate of the total amount of the fly-tipping in Wales. Whilst it is possible to record incidents of fly-tipping on private land into the database, not all LAs are aware of this or choose to do so. Also, many private landowners do not report incidents to the LA as they know that whilst the LA may investigate, they will normally only clear incidents on public land. Therefore, it is possible the actual number of incidents for Wales is higher than indicated.

The total number of fly-tipping incidents recorded by LAs in Wales should be greater or equal to the total number of fly-tipping incidents by size, as this relates to the fly-tipping incidents cleared by the LA only, not those cleared by others. However, after carrying out quality assurance checks on historic data this was found not to be the case for 2007 to 2008 and 2010 to 2011. To ensure this issue doesn’t occur in future years, validation processes will be improved to ensure consistency between data relating to incidents recorded by LAs and incidents cleared by LAs.

It should be noted that prosecutions do not necessarily take place in the same year as the relevant fly-tipping incident occurs.

Successful outcomes of prosecutions include conditional discharge, community service, fine, custodial sentence and other successful outcomes.

A single prosecution can yield multiple prosecution outcomes, which may lead to a difference between the two figures. In such cases, local authorities are expected to provide explanations in line with WDF guidance. For example, an offender could be ordered to pay a fine in addition to completing a specified number of community service hours.

In addition, there may be instances where there are more prosecutions than prosecution outcomes in some LAs. There has been an increase in LAs pursuing prosecutions in partnership. This can affect the reporting of these figures. This is to avoid duplication of prosecution outcome figures, where multiple parties cannot claim the same outcome each for the same prosecution.

We are continually working with FtAW to improve the quality of these statistics which will also involve updating the guidance. The differences between prosecutions and prosecution outcomes are infrequent and generally small.

In the current guidance, investigation actions are defined as “The enforcement team has recorded the incident, identified the evidence available and has either decided the action to be taken or is considering this. If a decision has been made the incident could also have generated other actions in the list.” Investigations are usually the first step and can lead to other enforcement actions like fines or prosecutions. This needs to be kept in mind when comparing investigations with other actions.

Revisions

We follow our statistical revisions policy. Where data has been revised it will be clearly marked with an (r).

Preparing for the 2024 to 2025 release, irregularities were found between the figures on WDF and StatsWales. These were due to a combination of factors including human errors, revisions on WDF not replicated on StatsWales, and inconsistencies in use of estimates.

To ensure accuracy and consistency, both WDF and StatsWales have been updated to match to match the latest available data and a consistent approach to estimates where data is missing. This exercise was carried out for the years 2015 to 2016 onwards.

Timeliness and punctuality

Timeliness refers to the lapse of time between publication and the period to which the data refer. Punctuality refers to the time lag between the actual and planned dates of publication.

All outputs adhere to the Code of Practice for Statistics by pre-announcing the date of publication through the upcoming pages on the Statistics for Wales website. Furthermore, should the need arise to postpone an output this would follow our revisions, errors and postponements arrangements.

We publish releases as soon as practical after the relevant time period.

Accessibility and clarity

Additional data is available to download from our StatsWales interactive website.

Comparability

To ensure that LAs only report fly-tipping incidents (and not presentation of waste issues) and to ensure more meaningful enforcement actions were recorded, the guidance is updated. Care should be taken when interpreting these figures due to changes and improvements in data reporting mechanisms and associated guidance. For example, large annual increases could be due to improved recording procedures.

Coherence

The degree to which data that are derived from different sources or methods, but which refer to the same phenomenon, are similar.

Related Statistics for Other UK Countries

England

The fly-tipping module of WDF is used by English LAs. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) publish fly-tipping statistics for England (DEFRA) on an annual basis.

Scotland

For further information on fly-tipping in Scotland please refer to the following:

National litter and flytipping strategy (gov.scot)

Litter and flytipping: scale and cost (gov.scot)

Northern Ireland

For further information on fly-tipping in Northern Ireland please refer to the following.

NIEA reveals illegal fly-tipping costs (Northern Ireland Environment Agency)

We always welcome feedback on any of our statistics. Please contact us via email: stats.environment@gov.wales